Been busy - but a follow-up on the last post re: Stuart Davis article.

It's funny - I know so much about Indian advaita, and various yoga practices.  I know quite a lot about Western synchronistic magic and meditation.  I am fairly experienced in Christian ecstatic mysticism.  And I am familiar with Tibetan Buddhism, as well as have gone on Vipassana retreats.

But my knowledge of the Zen tradition is limited. 

However, Stuart's description of being in witnessing awareness, while waking and sleeping, and deeper,  describes to a tee where I go in meditation, and have gone, at various times in life.

When I spent six months in India, devoted to meditation, beaches and hiking in the Himalayas (in that order) I reached a point where two things were happening in my consciousness.  


1.  The "witnessing" awareness was fairly constant, in waking, and was also in and out in sleeping.
2.  At the end of the trip, (last month or so, after trekking in the Himalayas), a conscious recognition of non-duality was always present, and arising.  This also lasted into sleep. 

It was quite jarring to have, especially, point 2 above, fall away, after a couple of months back in the U.S.   As well, point 1, as I got busy with the western life, experiencing the "crystalline" nature of awareness, for lack of a better word, comes in moments, rather than for hours and days.

(Then I got into emotional ecstatic mysticism, which was probably a huge mistake, as in these practices you can throw the witness out the window, but I'm not going to go into that now...was useful in terms of a very mind-y person's (me!) emotional growth, but very different that the "empty" awareness state.  A profoundly different transpersonal state.)

At any rate, there was quite the resonance for me, of the description of  witnessing in the waking and dream state.  I know I've heard it before, but I have related my experiences, to a different, Indian model.

So for me, was an "aha - that's me!" moment.

That's it!